


The Man With The Twisted Lip (1889)

by Cerdic519



Series: Elementary 221B [102]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Detectives, Alternate Universe - Victorian, Birthday Presents, Destiel - Freeform, Disguise, F/M, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Murder, Poisoning, Trains
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-31
Updated: 2017-05-31
Packaged: 2018-11-07 06:47:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11053536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerdic519/pseuds/Cerdic519
Summary: It is Watson's bad luck to come across a suspicious death in his travels – and for once, the list of suspects is both fixed and quite short.My 250th fic. I really need a life.....





	The Man With The Twisted Lip (1889)

I ended our last story with Sherlock and I at Tally-Ho! Junction, on our way back to dear old London Town. I should perhaps have mentioned that the winter weather was decidedly on the turn, and the weak sunshine that had marked our departure from the Boscombe Valley had already vanished beneath a heavy veil of cloud. By the time that we had reached Templecombe for the London train, Lord Winter was not so much falling on as bodily throwing himself at England, the country disappearing under several inches of snow in a matter of hours. Fortunately the railway companies were used to such eventualities, and although our journey back to Baker Street was longer than the one down, we still made it home safely, if decidedly chilled. And if I spent much of that evening on the couch holding a certain blue-eyed genius in my arms, well, it was solely for the warmth he always generated. 

Yes it was!

It was thoughts of home that filled my mind in those cold winter days, as my brother and sister-in-law were again pressing me to visit them and my new nephew in their home in Berwick-on-Tweed, some three hundred miles away to the north. My thirty-seventh birthday was, much to my chagrin, approaching rather more quickly than I would have liked, and whilst Sammy was happily settled in his own house, I was still in lodgings with my friend. Yet the recent Christmas, clear of the shadows of recent events, had been the happiest one since when my dear mother had been alive, and somehow I just could not envisage coming back to any house that did not possess a Sherlock. This was my life, and I liked it.

My having finally decided to bite the bullet and travel, my trip north had to be postponed for a short time, first until after the winter storms had passed, and then when Sherlock caught a chill which to my alarm rapidly worsened. Though I did not at any time fear for his life, I had no hesitation in sending an immediate telegram off to Sammy, telling him that I could not come until the following week at best. I felt a little guilty at abusing my brother's hospitality in this manner, but he replied that he quite understood. So as it happened, my birthday passed in London rather than Northumberland, and Sherlock made my day by presenting me with a new doctor's bag with an antelope stitched along each side.

“It is an impala”, he explained. “It is one of a kind; the creators in South Africa only did thirty, each with a different type of antelope on the outside. I thought that you might like something a little distinctive, since doctors' bags are so alike, and you once said that you thought having your initials on it was pretentious.”

“I love it!” I said firmly. “And my old one was falling apart, so it is perfect. Thank you!”

He also handed me a gift for my new nephew, though I was under firm instruction not to open it myself but to hand it to my sister-in-law. I presumed (wrongly, as it turned out) that it was a cheque, and my happy day was complete when Mrs. Harvelle served me a full apple-pie for dessert at tea, saying that she would wrap the rest for my trip. As Sherlock was almost fully recovered, I left two days later, on Saturday the twenty-sixth.

Yes, all right, I ate all the pie before the trip, yet the wonderful Mrs. Harvelle had a second one ready for me. I would have complained about being that predictable, but I had a pie and she had a rifle, so I most wisely buttoned it! 

+~+~+

It turned out that Sherlock had got an extra present for me; a first-class rail return ticket, including a sleeping car berth on the way back so I could spend an extra day with Sammy. I will not lie when I say that such thoughtfulness touched me. It also extended to my brother and his wife, for when she opened my friend's gift, my sister-in-law gasped.

“What is it?” I asked.

Wordlessly, she handed the piece of paper to her husband, who seemed equally stunned once he had read it.

“Your friend has paid for four sessions of childcare for us over the next three years”, Sammy said, clearly overcome. “This is the top nanny company in the whole area; we could never have afforded their services, but they say they will come to the house and take Johnnie any time, for seven to fourteen days of fun and excitement, so that we can have some time to ourselves. And if we have another child in that time, they will take them as well!

“That’s my Sherlock!” I said proudly. My brother and sister-in-law looked at me a little oddly, I thought, given my friend’s generosity, but neither of them said anything.

I had a wonderful week with my new nephew, who I quickly found was the messiest child ever. Even if left alone on the settee, he would magically attract some sticky substance to his person, the Lord alone knew where from. I also enjoyed that my brother and sister-in-law got to go out for a couple of nights and leave me in charge of the boy, which meant that they had some time to themselves. But as the weekend approached and my time drew to a close, I found myself missing London. Missing Baker Street. Missing….

I remember looking down at the little bundle of trouble, and silently wondering at something that I knew, deep down, I would never have. Yet it did not bother me as much, perhaps, as it might have done one time. After all, I had something much better. And if I had a tear in my eye, well, the maid had obviously not dusted the room well enough. I had sensitive eyes.

I left late on Saturday evening, and the three of them accompanied me to the station to see me off. I must say that there is something wonderful about the sleeper car service, going to sleep at one end of the country and waking up at another. And as it was first-class, I had a whole berth to myself. I turned in for the night feeling generally happy with life, my anxieties about Sherlock's recent travails having been shelved, I hoped, indefinitely.

In retrospect, I should have known that something would go wrong.

+~+~+

I had just been woken with my morning coffee and biscuits, and had decided to forswear the frankly dangerous idea of shaving on a moving train. I looked at my watch; assuming that we were on time, the train was probably just over half an hour from King’s Cross.

There was a knock at the door, and when I opened it, the conductor was standing in the corridor. I could see at once that he was disturbed, even before the man started babbling.

“I saw from the list of passengers that you are Doctor Jensen Ackles”, he burbled. “Is that right?”

Sherlock had booked the tickets under an assumed name for me. Even though my face was (mercifully) unknown to most of the general public outside my practice, the increasing popularity of my stories about my best friend had already resulted in me being recognized by my name, and on one occasion a lady had quite embarrassed me with her forwardness upon discovering my identity (all right, she had pressed me for a meeting with the great man himself, and some blue-eyed genius had actually sniggered about it when I had told him, the bastard!) The “Strand” magazine was also currently serializing our adventure in Hungary (“The Valley Of Fear”), so my public profile was high at the time.

“Doctor John Watson”, I corrected.

I presumed that the flicker of surprise I saw in the man's eyes was either because doctors tended not to travel incognito, or perhaps because he recognized my name. His next words confirmed that it was the latter.

“You are Mr. Sherlock Holmes' author!” he blurted out. “Sir, it is terrible! Murder!”

I rued at that moment my decision not to take my new doctor’s bag on my short holiday, though at least I might bring my expertise to bear on whatever had happened. I followed the conductor out of the room, locking my door behind me before hastening down the corridor after him.

There was only one first-class sleeper coach, and the conductor unlocked the connecting door into the second-class section of the train. He walked through, only to stop so suddenly outside a compartment that I almost ran into the back of him. He looked nervously up and down the corridor before extracting a key and opening the door in front of him, and ushered me inside. It was a standard two-berth compartment, its bland ordinariness offset only by the man lying dead on the floor. He was about thirty-five years of age, dark hair already going grey and quite thin. His main distinctive feature was a twisted lower lip, which was barely detectable due to his face having very clearly contorted in anger before death. 

First things first, I thought. I turned to the conductor. 

“There will be an inquest”, I said calmly, “and you will of course be asked questions. As you were the first person on the scene, your evidence will be critical. Is there any alcohol on the train?”

To my surprise, the man blushed.

“I have my own hip-flask”, he admitted, “but I am not allowed to drink on duty.”

“I am proscribing one glass of it for your nerves”, I said, scribbling a quick note to that effect, “and here is my address if your employers prove at all difficult. I need you to go back to your van and write down exactly what you did and saw, times included as best you can remember them. Once you are done, bring it back here to me, and I will read through it to see if it needs anything. Has anyone else seen the body?”

The lady in room four”, he said, looking embarrassed. “The victim had arranged to be called an hour before King's Cross, and I had just found him when she rang. She walked down the corridor when I failed to attend her, and saw everything. I took her back to her room and told her to stay there.”

“Did you lock this door behind you?” I asked.

He hesitated, and I guessed the negative. I sighed, and shooed him away. Once he was gone, I examined the body again, and concluded that death had been by two bullets, both of which had impacted around the heart and had almost certainly been fired from less than a foot away, given the degree of scorching around the entrance wounds. I quickly searched the rest of the room, but found nothing except, rather incongruously, a sapphire tie-pin a little way under one of the beds, the one that had been slept in. This did not seem to sit with the man’s generally shoddy appearance, even though it lay not far from the body. I did not touch it, but I made a note of its position and wrote down a quick description, as well as sketching a diagram of the room. 

After a moment’s thought, I decided to also go through the dead man’s pockets, feeling rather awkward as I did so. They contained little more than the general clutter found in most gentlemen’s attire, but I did find six calling-cards in the wallet with ‘Doctor Abraham Harrington M.D.’ on them. 

I was interrupted in my search by a knock at the door, which meant that the conductor must have returned. I told him to lock the room, and that we would adjourn to his van, which turned out to be a little cubby-hole of a room at the end of the first-class sleeper. I noticed as we walked that the train was slowing, which meant that we must be nearly at King’s Cross.

“Do you stay here all night?” I asked. He nodded. 

“We have to lock the doors between each coach”, he explained, “but I am on call for the first three coaches, including yours and the one where the body..... um.....”

He trailed off, and I wondered if a second shot of whisky might be advisable. 

“Is the door into the third coach locked?” I asked.

“Yes”, he said. “I always lock the door when I go through in either direction, so.....”

He trailed off again, but I knew from his pallor exactly where his mind had got to. With the exits to the adjoining coaches locked, then the murderer was almost certainly one of the other passengers in this coach. Someone still on the train.

I quickly checked through the conductor’s statement, and ascertained that he had a full list of passengers and their berths. There had only been five passengers in this coach, which had meant each had got a double-berth to themselves. I did not see how the two of us could detain five people, at least one of whom would be very anxious to leave, so I suggested instead that when the train stopped he should go straight to the station office and report the death to the relevant authorities, whilst I would remain with the body and his notes (the fact this would enable me to copy down the list of names was also a factor in my 'helpfulness'). 

I was barely back in the dead man's room when the train finally came to a halt, and the conductor almost fell out the door in his eagerness to be away. It was only a few short moments later (I had barely finished my copying) that we had two station officials there, followed ten minutes later by three policemen. They seemed impressed with the way that I had handled matters, and having taken a short statement from me, I was allowed to leave and head on to Baker Street, where I looked forward to discussing the night's events with my friend.

+~+~+

Much to my annoyance, Sherlock was out when I returned to 221B, and I did not get to see him until he arrived back just before dinner. Knowing how forgetful he was when it came to meals, I managed to curb my desire to discuss the case until we had reached coffee. 

“Really, doctor!” he said, waving an admonitory finger at me. “Am I not overworked enough that you must go stumbling over dead bodies every time that you leave the house?”

I pouted, but I could see that he did not really mean it.

“It is exceedingly rare that a case has such a closed field”, I said. “Normally we have to look at everyone with a possible motive, but here, we have to find a motive amongst a small band of people. One of them must be the killer.”

Sherlock relaxed and sat back. I stared at him suspiciously.

“Do you already know something about this case?” I demanded.

“I think I can say with some certainty that I know which of the people on the train killed your dead man”, he said, sucking at his barley-sugar pipe. “I sent a telegram to our good friend Sergeant Baldur when I read about the case in the paper this morning, and your evidence – which, by the way, was exceptionally well-gathered – only serves to confirm my suspicions.”

I marvelled at the modern London journalist, who could get a murder story out onto the streets before I could traverse the two short miles between King's Cross and Baker Street.

“I suspect the lady”, I said, looking at the list of passengers. “Miss Louise Mayfair. I think that she was definitely in on it, and that she distracted the guard, possibly to allow an accomplice to escape.”

“Sergeant Baldur did say in his reply that she was the only one with a criminal record”, Sherlock admitted. “Her past is quite interesting, apart from that. Though remember, she only distracted him _after_ he had found the body, the conductor staying with her all the time. And I am quite certain that this is a one-person crime.”

“The conductor was quite taken with her”, I recalled. “He sad that stayed with her for two to three minutes, he said, after returning her to her berth. And all that time, the door to the crime scene was unlocked and unguarded.”

“But the man was already dead”, Sherlock pointed out, looking at my list of suspects. “Let us start with the conductor, Mr. Albert Brakes. A good name for a railway worker. And he found the body.”

“According to his statement, the train stopped for water and a change of locomotive at Doncaster”, I said, “where the North Eastern Railway staff were replaced by Great Northern ones, including him. I am certain from my examination that the victim did not die until Peterborough at the very earliest, more likely closer to Hitchin. Mr. Brakes said that he remained in his cupboard all the way from Doncaster. The train slowed for a signal around Northampton, but I am sure that the victim was shot after that, and the train did not stop all the way to King's Cross.”

“He stayed in his cupboard all the time?” Sherlock asked, clearly surprised.

“He answered one query from the gentleman in 2A about fifteen minutes in, but he stood in the corridor the whole time”, I said. “No-one could have got to the door of 7B. Doctor Harrington's compartment, without passing him; you know how narrow those corridors are. And the doors at either end of the coach were locked.”

“What about the guard?” Sherlock asked. “Does he not have a key?” 

I checked my notes. 

“He does", I admitted, "but he would have had to have passed the conductor's area to reach the dead man's compartment. True, Mr. Brakes did use the facility one time, but unless the guard miraculously timed his visit to that precise moment, he cannot have entered the coach.”

There was a knock at the door and a boy entered, bearing a telegram. Sherlock quickly read it, told the boy there was no reply and gave him a coin before he left.

“Some inquiries that I asked Sergeant Baldur to follow up”, he explained. “It seems as if those calling-cards you found in the dead man's wallet may actually have been genuine. It really was Doctor Abraham Harrington M.D. who was killed.”

I frowned. The name seemed vaguely familiar to me for some reason, but I could not place it.

“The Foster Street Orphanage”, Sherlock reminded me. “You expounded very forcefully on it last summer.”

Then I remembered. The headline, 'Josiah versus Abraham' had stuck in my mind; a story of two brothers fighting over the future of an orphanage. Josiah Harrington, the elder by several years, had wanted to close it down and sell the land, whilst the younger brother, Abraham, who held joint ownership of the property, had opposed him. However, Abraham was dying of some terminal wasting disease, and although he might have years yet, the story had speculated that the older brother was just waiting for him to pass into the next world so that he could sell the land.

“You believe that Mr. Josiah Harrington may have killed his brother?” I asked. “But how could he have got onto the train. Unless....”

I suddenly saw it.

“Unless he was disguised as someone else!” I almost shouted. 

“An interesting speculation”, Sherlock said with a smile. “That would mean he would have to buy off one of the other people on the train so that he could assume their identity.”

“I wish that we had physical descriptions of the four men”, I said. “I remember that picture of the two brothers, and they were both tallish and quite gaunt, and I thought 'funeral directors'. I was in with the body, so I did not see any of the passengers alight.”

“Fortunately Sergeant Baldur sent brief descriptions of everyone from the coach”, Sherlock said. “He says that Mr. Felix Bathurst in 2A is about thirty, of medium height and a little overweight. Mr. Allington Ford in 3B is about fifty, thin and above average height. Moving past Miss Louise Mayfair in 4B – she is barely five foot tall, apart from certain, ahem, other issues - we have Mr. Michael Wollaston in 5A, about forty, tall and of normal build. Mr. Evan Smith in 6A is also about forty, quite short and thin, and has a prominent birthmark on his face. I remember the picture of Mr. Josiah Harrington in the paper; I would have described him as tall, thin and about forty-five years of age. And we must not forget your conductor.”

“He is about sixty and rather fat for a tall man”, I said, remembering how the man had almost matched my above-average height despite his girth. “It seems to look like it is either Mr. Ford or Mr. Wollaston, as they have the height to match Mr. Josiah Harrington. That cannot be faked or disguised.”

“Indeed”, Sherlock said. “You have stumbled across a most interesting case, doctor, but I think by tomorrow or the day after I may have enough to prove who the murderer was.”

I stared at him dubiously, but he looked strangely confident.

+~+~+

It was snowing again that day, and Sherlock had to go out after dinner for some reason. I was glad not to accompany him, though when he did not immediately return, I began to wish that I had. The snow was now falling so heavily that I could not even make out the houses across the street from our window, and I grew increasingly worried as I sat on our commodious sofa by the fire, waiting for him. At last I heard the welcoming turning of the handle, and turned to see my friend enter. 

He looked awful. I hurried over to him and helped him out of his wet coat, and over to the fireplace. He was shivering, and I could have proposed marriage to her when Mrs. Harvelle bustled in seconds after him with a steaming cup of hot chocolate. She promised to have a hot meal up within half an hour, which was even better.

I quickly realized that all my friend's clothes were soaked, and set about undressing him by the fireplace. He stood there seemingly too out of it to notice, though he did respond to commands to move so I could get his various items of clothing off of him. I then took a towel from the drying-rail in front of the fire – mercifully heated – and began to rub him all over, drying him off. 

Finally I dressed him in his favourite pyjamas and dressing-gown and sat him down on the sofa, making sure that he was with it enough to keep hold of his mug before placing it in his hands. Typically he drank it down almost at once, making me wince; I knew that I could never do that. He was still shivering slightly though, so I gave him my drink, which he also downed at once.

“So good”, he muttered. “I do not deserve you, John.”

I had wanted to yell at him for being so careless with his health as to get this way, but as those impossibly blue eyes stared at me in gratitude, my anger melted away. I took his hand and sighed in a put-upon manner.

“You have to take better care of yourself”, I grumbled. “I shall get one of the maids to put a warming-pan in my bed this evening.”

“I could sleep right now”, he yawned.

“Mrs. Harvelle will have supper up shortly”, I said. “Let us get some food inside you first.”

The look he gave me was of such undying gratitude that I nearly melted into a puddle right there and then. Fortunately one of the maids entered with a warming-pan that very moment - I owed Mrs. Harvelle yet again for her foresight - so I waited for her to be done and asked for two more hot chocolates. He smiled his gummy smile at me, and I sighed at him.

He was still an idiot, though.

+~+~+

Sergeant Baldur came round the following day, to bring us up to date on developments. Unsurprisingly no-one amongst the passengers admitted to recognizing the tie-pin, although in the sergeant's eyes such a quality item befitted Mr. Wollaston, who had a fair-sized estate in Scotland, rather than Mr. Ford, who owned a medium-sized house in London and had a clerical post at a trading-house. Mr. Josiah Harrington had said when asked that his brother never wore anything so expensive, preferring to dress down despite his wealth. Sherlock also told me that he had sent another telegram which, if answered, might clear things up somewhat, but he would tell me nothing more. No matter how much I pouted (and I did not pout!).

The day was marked, however, by a sensational development in the case. My quick search of the compartment had failed to uncover it, but hidden under the lower of the two beds, police was found a revolver from which two shots had been discharged. And there had been fingerprints on it – except they turned out to belong to no-one on the train, as all the passengers and Mr. Brakes had by this time been interviewed and had their prints taken. Mr. Josiah Harrington had subsequently identified the gun as one owned by his brother, and a servant in the house had backed this up. 

“That seems very strange”, I observed after tea that evening. “Surely a murderer would either take a weapon with him, or dispose of it via the window, where it would be almost undetectable?”

“There was the possibility of everyone being searched”, Sherlock reminded me. “And throwing something from a train window into the pitch dark bears its own risk; the murderer could not know if they happened to be passing an unlit station or some line-side building where it might be discovered the next day.”

“They could easily have wiped the gun after the crime”, I said. “But I don't see how anyone else could have got onto the train without being seen.”

He had that knowing look that really irritated me, even when he hid it behind his book. I did another non-pout.

+~+~+

Ten days passed, and I assumed that Sherlock had had no answer to his telegram. But come Thursday morning, I was excited to read in the paper that there had been a confession, at least of sorts. A Mr. Isaac Olivier, who had apparently disembarked two days ago from the _“Imperator”_ , claimed that he had killed Dr. Abraham Harrington before fleeing to the United States. He said that he had sneaked onto the train during the changeover at Doncaster, and picked the lock of compartment 1, the only empty one in the coach. He had knocked at the victim's door pretending to be the conductor, then forced his way in and shot him at close range. His motive, he said cryptically, was that Dr. Abraham Harrington was far from what he appeared to be, and one day the truth regarding his character would come out. I assumed that the police forces of that country would be tracking Mr. Olivier, but with the wide-open spaces of the west still being settled and with the generally lawlessness therein, there would be little hope of finding him.

That same morning Sherlock announced that he was expecting a visitor, and asked if I would remain. Sure enough, soon after Mrs. Harvelle announced our guest.

“Mr. Josiah Harrington.”

A tall and somewhat cadaverous gentleman entered our room, and walked silently to the empty chair by the fire. He seemed vaguely familiar from somewhere, but I assumed that it was just my recollection of his picture in the “Times”. Sherlock waited until he had sat down before speaking. 

“You murdered your brother.”

Perhaps not the most conventional start to a conversation, especially as I promptly broke my pencil in my astonishment. Our guest, however, did not seem in the least bit perturbed.

“That is a most serious accusation, sir”, he said dryly, “even from such a great man as yourself. I trust that you can make it good?”

“I would rather not”, Sherlock said, to my further surprise. “In the light of certain circumstances surrounding this crime, bringing you to trial would not only be pointless, but would harm innocent – well, fairly innocent - people who should not have been involved.”

“They knew the risks”, Mr. Harrington said curtly. “One acted through loyalty, the other for a great sum of money. Why do you believe that I should not face trial for such a heinous crime, assuming of course that I actually did it?”

Sherlock hesitated, which was very unlike him.

“Because you are dying”, he said softly. “Your brother had all but murdered you, so you merely returned the favour.”

I needed a drink.

+~+~+

“I think that this crime dates back some years, to a time when you and your brother were both in the grip of a devil called opium”, Sherlock said. “The story your brother put out was that he contracted a fatal disease whilst in China, but the truth is that he contracted that disease via his drug-taking.”

“Abe was always one for spinning a good yarn”, our visitor said with a wry smile. “The twisted lip was from when he tried to push me out of a tree when we were boys; he slipped and fell out himself, but told our parents that I had pushed him. He was so credible when he wanted to be; he even persuaded the papers last year that I was the one who wanted to close the orphanage last year, not him.”

“Indeed”, Sherlock said, “and he used that credibility to secure your end. He persuaded you some time ago that you needed an injection, and he made sure to use a needle smeared with his own infected blood. It took some time to manifest, but eventually you found out.”

Our visitor nodded.

“My doctor in Harley Street confirmed that it was exactly the same thing Abe had”, he said. “He was even able to give me a rough date as to when I had been infected. That was how I tracked it to his injection.”

“You knew that your brother had regular business in Edinburgh, so killing him on the night sleeper seemed a good choice”, Sherlock continued. “You found a conductor who looked similar to you in appearance, and paid him to take a week off so that you could take his place. Did your brother recognize you at the end?”

“He did”, our visitor said curtly. “I made sure of that!”

I shuddered involuntarily.

“But Mr. Brakes was at least three stone heavier!” I objected, though I had a nagging feeling that my semi-recognition of the man when he had arrived only proved Sherlock's theory.

“I purloined what is called a 'fat-suit' from our local theatrical society”, our visitor explained. “Cheek pads, rouge and old-fashioned hair powder did the rest. I trust that I was convincing as Mr. Albert Brakes, doctor?”

I felt as if my world was falling apart.

“What about the tie-pin?” I asked.

“That, like the gun, was to suggest an outsider”, Sherlock said. “Ironically, it also became a weakness. Few genuine railway employees, faced with such temptation and a minimal likelihood of ever being found out, would have left it there.”

“But the telegram!” I objected. “New York?”

“A faithful servant who doubtless enjoyed a fast trip across the wide Atlantic Ocean and back again”, Sherlock said. Our guest nodded.

“So now you know all”, he said. “I know that the law is the law, but I have read the good doctor's books about you, Mr. Holmes. I think that you may well grant me justice rather than the law.”

Sherlock hesitated.

“The London police can be very determined”, he said, “and though I hesitate to speak ill of them, it is quite possible that they may make a case against one of the other passengers if they choose not to believe your telegram. I personally think that unlikely, but if any innocent person has to go to court as a result of your actions, Mr. Harrington, I will have no hesitation in producing this.”

He rose and walked over to his desk, taking out a single sheet of paper before taking it to and placing it on the table I was sat at.

“This is a signed confession”, he told our guest. “You will sign it, the doctor here will witness it, and I will only produce it if absolutely necessary. Be assured, I _will_ use it if the need arises, but my personal opinion is that you will soon be answering to a higher court than any in this world.”

Our visitor nodded, stood and walked smartly over to the table, signing without hesitation. I marvelled that the fretful overweight railway official and the well-dressed man about town could be one and the same person, before adding my own scrawl. He bowed to us both and left silently.

“Well!” I said.

“His brother effectively murdered him, albeit slowly”, Sherlock said. “He merely struck back. An eye for an eye, as the Good Book says. And he will bear the mark of that crime for what remains of his days.”

+~+~+

Mr. Josiah Harrington lived only for a further two months after his encounter with us in Baker Street. In his will, he left a letter to us both, thanking us for our understanding, and asking that the case be published subject to his son Peter's agreement. Doctor Peter Harrington agreed, and hence I have fulfilled a dying man's last wish.

+~+~+

In our next case, someone from my own past comes unexpectedly and dramatically back into my life – and they happened to be involved in a small matter of murder. Oh, and they bring a little surprise for me personally.


End file.
